Pre-orders that are created as charge-later or deposit-upfront allow you to charge customers in the future via deferred charge. The customer’s card is vaulted, as opposed to pre-authorized, so you can trigger payment whenever suits your store.

We also have a YouTube video here.

What are deferred charges #

A deferred charge is where the customer accepts a future charge at the time of pre-order via your checkout. Shopify, PayPal, Stripe or Authorize.net will ‘vault’ the card details to use for the future transaction.

Triggering deferred charges for all pre-orders  #

1. Navigate to a listing’s dashboard from within PreProduct. On the left-hand side of the dashboard will be a ‘Charge all customers’ button. 
2. You will now see a list of variants for that product and whether an upcoming charge email is set to send first.

3. Click the ‘Charge customers’ button and then a pop-up will appear prompting you to click ‘Confirm’. 

By default, deferred charges apply to the whole order, meaning all pre-order items from the customer’s original cart will be paid for. On Shopify Plus you can also charge just for specific line items, see Charging specific line items below.

Triggering deferred charges for specific pre-orders  #

1. Navigate to a listing dashboard from within PreProduct. On the left-hand side of the dashboard will be a ‘Select and charge customers’ button. 

2. All customer who have pre-ordered the product will be displayed. You can search, filter and select specific customers to charge. Feel free to also use the “Newest #” and “Oldest #” boxes which let you select X number of pre-orders from the filtered results or select all results via the top left checkbox.
3. Once you have selected the customers you wish to charge, click on Actions and then ‘Charge Customers’.

Charging specific line items (Shopify Plus) #

If a customer’s pre-order has more than one line item, Shopify Plus stores can choose to charge just some of them rather than the whole order. Before pressing the charge button, you’ll see a list of the order’s variants, each with a tick-box. Leaving every variant ticked (the default) charges the whole outstanding order, exactly as described above. Untick any variants you’re not ready to charge, and only the selected line items will be charged.

The line items you leave unticked stay outstanding, so you can come back and charge them later in a separate action. On a successful charge, only the line items you selected have their fulfillment holds released. The rest stay on hold until they’re charged too.

If you also type in a custom amount (for example to take a partial payment or an installment), that amount is capped at the outstanding balance of the variants you’ve selected, and never exceeds the order’s total outstanding. This means Shopify Plus stores can trigger a specific installment amount against a single line item, giving you complete flexibility over what gets charged, when, and against which item.

Installments #

Both Shopify Plus and non-Shopify stores can use PreProduct to charge ad-hoc installment payments. These can be triggered multiple times until the order is fully paid.

From the PreProduct listings dashboard or the See all screen, click Charge customers to open the pop-up. Then select Charge an installment, enter the amount, and click Charge customers to process the payment.

Whether you trigger installments as a group or one by one, you can view the results by clicking the blue Payments option on the pre-order’s individual card. In the screenshot below, note the Latest charge section for the Utility Caddy line item, along with updated Paid and Outstanding amounts reflecting the new payment.